world of men's style / fashion / grooming

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But before you start ordering or mixing up cold, refreshing adult beverages at will, you’ll want to choose wisely. Because with the vast number of blended, lime-y, tiny-umbrella-wielding options before you, what you ultimately end up sipping on is making a statement. And since we’re here to help, we’ve gone ahead and laid out a handy road map for you:

Introducing Kempt’s March Madness bracket, wherein we pit the most iconic college basketball coaches against one another in an attempt to finally nail down who’s the most stylish of them all.

As you’d expect, it takes more than just sporting a pocket square or one nice blazer every so often to be named one of the most stylish college coaches of all time—everyone looks at least halfway decent in a suit and tie.

We were looking for coaches with a distinct through-line of personal style—and since most of these guys spent decades and multiple trend cycles on the sidelines, it usually came down to one iconic item they’d never given up. John Wooden’s thick-rimmed glasses, Bob Knight’s red sweaters or even Jerry Tarkanian’s “chew towel”—that sort of thing. Even if the pattern or cut of their sport jacket changed, that item didn’t. Which meant a guy like Jim Boeheim just missed the cut, because you might not even recognize his surgeon-cuffed look of today as the same guy who wore this in the 1970s. (Also just missing the cut: Gary Williams and his signature sweatiness.)

But there were plenty to choose from, and we just managed to cut the field down to the Sweet 16—which is where we’ll begin today, and continue to narrow down as the week progresses.

Perhaps we should be clearer: the question at hand is whether Tom Cruise is a style icon. It’s a fair question, and one we’ve found ourselves pondering for whatever reason in these slow-going post-Oscar, pre-summer-blockbuster months.

First, there are all kinds of reasons he’s not: he isn’t exactly Ryan Gosling off screen; he almost definitely relies on a stylist for the red carpet; and, oh yeah, he’s the leading member of a batshit pseudo-religious organization that may or may not run hard-labor prison camps. [Ed. Note for legal reasons: Allegedly. ]

The papal conclave: a time for cardinals to come together, shoot the breeze and hopefully put a little white smoke up the Vatican chimney. And obviously, the stakes from a style perspective couldn’t be higher: one of these guys is about to inherit a windfall of papal wardrobe and accessories.

The pope’s job, after all (aside from leading the Catholic Church and telling the Popemobile driver to “open her up on the next straightaway”), is to make as bold a fashion statement as a grown man can make outside of being Kanye West. And then do this on a daily basis (sadly, we never see “casual pope”).

The ceremonial trappings that come with the job—the red loafers, the Ring of the Fisherman, the many, many fantastical hats—are not exactly the easiest looks to pull off.

In the pool of contenders, we see a few guys pulling off daring ensembles during their time as cardinals, while others, not so much.

Along with tattooed eyeballs and stenciled back hair, we’re going to go ahead and ban male ponytails once and for all. Because there’s simply never a good time to ask your date if you can borrow her scrunchie.

Its primary evolutionary purpose is threefold: 1) To prevent moisture from entering the eye. 2) To strengthen expressions of emotion, particularly with regard to confusion and disdain. 3) To assist in the process of facial recognition.

Expounding on #3, a recent MIT study revealed that 50% of participants were unable to identify celebrities whose eyebrows had been digitally removed. As we’re prone to do here at Kempt, we’ve turned MIT’s study on its ass and, below, have provided you with only celebrities’ eyebrows.

While we’re offering neither a prize nor penalty nor compelling reason to participate in our study, we hope you will...»

There’s a pretty good post about buyer’s remorse over at A Headlong Dive, covering the basic things you should consider whenever you step up to the retail plate. (The short version: fit matters; brands, trends and markdowns don’t.)

It’s important stuff to know, especially in the age of flash commerce, but we can’t help but think it missed a little bit of the magic that can pop up between a stylish guy, a good shop and a well-made item.